Celebrities writing comics isn't exactly new. Kevin Smith took over writing duties on Daredevil in 1999, and he's been knee-deep in the comics world ever since. Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance has had great success with his series The Umbrella Academy. Rosario Dawson co-created the miniseries O.C.T.: Occult Crimes Taskforce, and Milo Ventimiglia has produced the series Rest and Berserker. But we're seeing an increasing trend toward celebrities lending their words and their names to original comics creations.

One celebrity book just out this summer is Tyrese Gibson's Mayhem, and it exemplifies one of the darker aspects of this trend. Mayhem is a bit of a generic comic, following a masked hero who battles the gangs and drug dealers of Los Angeles, but that hasn't stopped Gibson from aggressively hawking his book across the Internet and at this past summer's Comic Con. Gibson, who is credited as one of three writers on Mayhem, tends to sell the book on the strength his recommendation as a famous person rather than its plot. And his marketing tactics — which has included calling people who criticizing his book "haters" — has induced more than a little eye-rolling and prompted Gibson's own marketing director to quit (David Brothers has a great rundown of Mayhem's marketing missteps at 4thletter!).

But Mayhem is about to get a lot of competition in the celebrity comic books field. Oni Press is set to publish Frenemy of the State, co-written by actress Rashida Jones. Jones' book is about a socialite who gets into trouble with the law and agrees to work as a spy in order to stay out of prison. And in early 2010, we will see We Will Bury You, a tale of zombies in the roaring '20s written by Heroes' speedster Brea Grant and her brother Zane.

So are all these celebrity comics just a bid for movie deals? There's certainly that component to it. Dawson already has plans to make (and star in) an adaptation of Occult Crimes Taskforce, though she's still looking for a studio. Gibson has said in interviews that he has no current plans to make a Mayhem movie, but he's made no secret of his desire to take on a superhero role. And Universal Pictures has already acquired the rights to Frenemy of the State; Jones is co-writing the screenplay, but says she's too old to play the lead.

But hopefully there's some love of comics and storytelling at play as well. When Grant was first cast in Heroes, she said she was a big fan of comics, and credited her brother with getting her hooked on The Invisibles. And Emma Caulfield of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame has a passion project that seems unlikely to see the big screen. She's writing Contropussy, a webcomic about a streetwise cat and her often ill-fated animal acquaintances (the most recent plotline featured a Kill Bill-inspired sequence with a sword-wielding bunny rabbit), which she also plans to turn into an animated online series.

Perhaps "I'm going to write a comic" will eventually become the new "I want to direct" in Hollywood, with actors exploiting comics' built-in storyboards to pitch their own projects and build their own roles. But in some cases, celebrities may be recognizing comics as an accessible way to make the transition from performer to creator. Of course, all this may simply be symptomatic of the increasingly blurry lines between various media. After all, while many comic book creators hope to have their books adapted for television or film, publishers can also tap celebrities to adapt their existing projects as comics. Dark Horse has already recognized that potential; the publisher has geek queen Felicia Day adapting her online series The Guild in dead tree format.

As I mentioned in my review, one of the odd things about Death Race is the fact that Tyrese Gibson's character, Machine Gun Joe, is referred to as gay several times by various characters. There's even an odd moment of gay innuendo between Jason Statham and Gibson at the end of the movie, which gets defused at the last moment. Gibson insisted in an interview that his character isn't actually gay, but the film certainly pushes the idea pretty hard. (I'm wondering if there's a deleted scene where this gets addressed?)

In any case, AfterElton.com, a site that critiques mass media from a gay perspective, has hailed the movie as a major step forward because "We have an actual gay character whose sexuality isn't the focal point of who he is, and is treated matter-of-factly." But most of all, AfterElton hails Gibson's character because "The gay guy survives! That's right, a gay character in a an action film survives, along with the hero. Of course, he has to take out a few dozen people along the way, but the movie is called Death Race, not Happy Puppies Frolicking."

[AfterElton]

Gibson couldn't stop smiling when talking about the 'cats. But he didn't have a specific Thundercat in mind, explaining that there were a lot of options. When pressed to ask if there was more Hollywood talk about this cartoon remake Gibson said, "I'm just looking into that."

He has also been linked to the superhero character Luke Cage. His Cage update was very non-commital, "we'll see what happens. There's a lot of anticipation and things that need to happen," (including the tweaking of the classic yellow-shirt uniform). Let's hope it comes together soon, because according to Gibson he's also on standby to play B.A. Baracus in John Singleton's remake of the A-Team.